Not long ago I picked up the catalogue for an exhibition of John Piper's Welsh art. Just a couple of days later I saw on the BBC the announcement that much of it has been acquired by the National Museum of Wales. They have surely obtained some of Piper's best work.
Reading through the catalogue I came upon David Fraser Jenkin's remark that Piper is perhaps our best landscape painter. This gave me pause for reflection alright, for, I thought to myself, is Piper really a landscape artist at all, and if he is then how should we rate him? Perhaps he was the best landscape painter of his time-after all,the C20 was not a great age of British landscape painting.
I don't agree with Jenkins. Buildings are what really interest Piper. Not people and very rarely the landscape. He is at his best with the relatively monochromatic paintings of the Welsh mountains and Cardiff is now the possessor of the largest group of his finest work.But colour is not his forte.In the Seaton Delaval and Renishaw paintings the connections with stage sets are very strong.That is what Piper is like.I never feel that Piper loves nature, though he does love picture making.
Does Piper paint the sky with any confidence, interest or competence? The answer must be in the negative. Depictions of the sky-"the chief organ of sentiment in a landscape", as Constable proclaimed, are more or less perfunctory with Piper. He can do only one mode with any confidence. It was easy for him to obtain unity in his paintings by adopting the methods he chose, by avoiding the drama of the sky and concentrating on the building which is what really interests him. The use of strong flat colour also helps in this quest. You may object that landscapes do not have to show the sky.Most European landscape painters do, most Chinese artists do not. It is also true that most landscape painters are not good with skies.But that is another point, we cannot all be Cotmans.The only similarity between Cotman and Piper is the antiquarianism. The one suffering artistic struggle because of his workload and the other willingly scouring the country for curiosities.
It may be objected that there are many fine landscape artists who take little interest in the sky-better ones than Piper such as Bonington have treated skies in a very formulaic manner.Piper really cannot be bothered.If he had produced less and better rather than more and worse he would have a higher reputation. Can you imagine a Piper retrospective at the Musée d'Orsay? No, I didn't think so?
Would that Piper had stuck to the topography and the guide books.Perhaps also the theatre.He doesn't seem to have much of a sense of colour and he certainly produced too much work. If you don't agree then take a look at those slim catalogues from Marlborough Fine Art. So much is dreadful. I shouldn't really comment on the stained glass, but, judging from the illustrations in Spalding it cannot be good. Some of the smaller designs verge on the crude or the silly, it seems to me.
The auction record for his work, set in 2008 was for a painting from his abstract period in the thirties, a tolerable but sterile period, not for his later work.Late Bomberg is much to be preferred for landscape. Or Sheila Fell- a relatively conservative artist who had so much more feeling for paint-and nature.
For the BBC item on the recent acquisition by the National Museum of Wales see here.
John Piper in Wales,intro by David Fraser Jenkins, 1990.
John and Myfanwy Piper, Frances Spalding,2009
Reading through the catalogue I came upon David Fraser Jenkin's remark that Piper is perhaps our best landscape painter. This gave me pause for reflection alright, for, I thought to myself, is Piper really a landscape artist at all, and if he is then how should we rate him? Perhaps he was the best landscape painter of his time-after all,the C20 was not a great age of British landscape painting.
I don't agree with Jenkins. Buildings are what really interest Piper. Not people and very rarely the landscape. He is at his best with the relatively monochromatic paintings of the Welsh mountains and Cardiff is now the possessor of the largest group of his finest work.But colour is not his forte.In the Seaton Delaval and Renishaw paintings the connections with stage sets are very strong.That is what Piper is like.I never feel that Piper loves nature, though he does love picture making.
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| The Rise of the Dovey: John Piper |
It may be objected that there are many fine landscape artists who take little interest in the sky-better ones than Piper such as Bonington have treated skies in a very formulaic manner.Piper really cannot be bothered.If he had produced less and better rather than more and worse he would have a higher reputation. Can you imagine a Piper retrospective at the Musée d'Orsay? No, I didn't think so?
Would that Piper had stuck to the topography and the guide books.Perhaps also the theatre.He doesn't seem to have much of a sense of colour and he certainly produced too much work. If you don't agree then take a look at those slim catalogues from Marlborough Fine Art. So much is dreadful. I shouldn't really comment on the stained glass, but, judging from the illustrations in Spalding it cannot be good. Some of the smaller designs verge on the crude or the silly, it seems to me.
The auction record for his work, set in 2008 was for a painting from his abstract period in the thirties, a tolerable but sterile period, not for his later work.Late Bomberg is much to be preferred for landscape. Or Sheila Fell- a relatively conservative artist who had so much more feeling for paint-and nature.
For the BBC item on the recent acquisition by the National Museum of Wales see here.
John Piper in Wales,intro by David Fraser Jenkins, 1990.
John and Myfanwy Piper, Frances Spalding,2009
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